Mother Charged With Neglect Of Children

FORT LAUDERDALE — A woman accused of leaving her children for six days in a home without food, running water or a bed has been charged with four counts of child neglect, police said Monday.

Sgt. MacKinley Smith said that Dorothy McClain, 30, of the 1600 block of Northwest Seventh Court, was receiving welfare benefits including food stamps. Meanwhile, Smith said, there was no food, electricity or water in the apartment, which he described as ``filthy and roach-infested.``

McClain left the house last week, saying she was going to get the electricity and water turned on and pay the overdue rent, Smith said. Her four children, ranging in age from 6 to 13, were left with Bobby Ford, 31, who recently moved into the apartment.

Six days later, she still had not returned, Smith said. While she was gone, Ford let the children sleep in the apartment, then locked them outside from about 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Smith said.

``The kids would wander the street looking for food,`` Smith said.

Police described the apartment as ``unfit for human beings.``

``Once inside, I could not believe that human beings lived inside it,`` Smith said in his report.

Of the kitchen, he wrote ``all it had was a sink with still water on a plate with roaches living in it. A bar which was used to place candles on top of it for light. No stove, no refrigerator or ice box, no food anywhere.``

Marijuana residue was found in the house, fungus was growing in the bathroom, and the one bedroom where the four children and their mother slept had no bed, he said. ``This room was very infested with roaches and filth,`` Smith wrote.

The case has been turned over to the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

Ford told police the family had been living in the apartment for several weeks, and that he moved in when McClain`s boyfriend moved out. Smith did not know where they had been living previously.

Police were alerted to the case by a confidential informant, who asked if there was anything police could do to help the children, two boys and two girls, Smith said. The informant claimed McClain was using her government checks to purchase drugs, he said.

At that point, the children were going to friends` and relatives` houses, and anywhere they could, asking for food, he said.

McClain`s cousin, Mattie Miller, 44, of the 2400 block of Northwest Second Street in Fort Lauderdale, told police she was driving down the street Saturday morning, when she noticed three of the children. She said they told her they were hungry and had been locked out of the apartment.

They also told her they were looking for their mother, whom they hadn`t seen for several days, she said.

Miller, who already had one of the children at her house, took the other children in, she said. Miller said the children did not want to return home, and that she would keep them as long as necessary, Smith said.

Police were unable to track down McClain, so they left word ``on the street`` that she could pick up her children at the police station. When she arrived to pick them up at 1:45 p.m. Sunday, she was arrested.

She was taken to Broward County Jail, where she was being held on $500 bond.